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After hearing complaint after complaint from people in Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake and Arviat, Public Works Minister Goo Arlooktoo is hinting that he may change his department's plans for fuel resupply in the Keewatin.
JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Public Works Minister Goo Arlooktoo said this week that he may consider delaying the GNWT's latest fuel resupply plan for the Keewatin until he after he meets with officials from Northern Transportation Company Limited.
Right now, NTCL barges based in Churchill, Manitoba supply fuel to most Keewatin communities.
But Arlooktoo says the GNWT can save money by moving as quickly as possible to a direct resupply system using ocean-going tankers based in Montreal.
Many Keewatin residents believe, however, that their region isn't ready for such a system. At meetings in Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake and Arviat last week, many residents told Arlooktoo they want to delay the idea until after the Nunavut government is created in 1999.
Can NTCL cut costs?
"I went in there with an open mind," Arlooktoo says of his mini-tour of the Keewatin last week. "The leaders that spoke and several people in the meetings all spoke against it."
But he said the resupply system his government is proposing would save a lot of money over time.
That's why Arlooktoo says he wants to talk to NTCL to see if the company has any suggestions about reducing costs in the event that the GNWT decides to delay the project.
"There's no incentive right now to keep costs down," Arlooktoo said.
He also said that the Baffin region which has always had direct resupply of fuel products from Montreal is "subsidizing" the cost of barge-supplied fuel in the Keewatin and Kitikmeot regions.
"The Baffin has a very efficient system that actually subsidizes the Keewatin, Kitikmoet and part of the West," Arlooktoo said.
O'Brien still wants delay
Kivallivik MLA Kevin O'Brien, an aggressive critic of the GNWT's plans, says he still believes that the only choice available to the GNWT is to delay direct resupply of the Keewatin until after 1999.
That, O'Brien says, will provide enough time to allow the GNWT to finish hydrographic studies of waters around the Keewatin so that captains sailing ocean-going tankers into the area will know where they're going.
"The bottom line is that the charts aren't done," O'Brien said this week.
Safe for shipping?
He said that Captain Rick James, a retired Arctic mariner hired by the GNWT as a consultant on the hydrographic work, admitted that even he wouldn't want to sail a tanker into areas that aren't charted yet.
But Arlooktoo said all the affected harbours have been charted, and that it's only a 10-kilometre corridor offshore from those communties that hasn't been charted.
"We're 99 per cent sure that the area is safe," Arlooktoo said.
Arlooktoo also said that Nunavik communities on the eastern side of Hudson Bay have been getting direct resupply for many years.
O'Brien, on the other hand, said the GNWT should still abide by the conclusions of the Keewatin Resupply Committee, which last year recommended that the Keewatin move to direct resupply only after 1999.
"The GNWT has no business negotiating a contract on behalf of the Nunavut government," O'Brien said.
Under the contract that the GNWT is proposing, a contractor would build and lease the new fuel pipes back to the GNWT, and then to the government of Nunavut over a long-term lease-back arrangement.
That has prompted Nunavut Tunngavik to oppose the deal on the grounds that it violates the Nunavut Act.P> Under the Nunavut Act, the interim commissioner can't enter into a contract on behalf of Nunavut that extends beyond the year 2001.
O'Brien also said that he expects that the GNWT will eventually decide to delay the proposal until after 1999.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsNewfoundland Premier Brian Tobin caught Labrador's Inuit off guard when he released details of a confidential negotiating document last week. But the LIA says Tobin's deal may not be the deal that Labrador Inuit will settle for.
JULIE GREEN
Special to Nunatsiaq News
HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY The board of the Labrador Inuit Association says the Newfoundland and Canadian governments do not have a land claims deal with Labrador Inuit, despite mounting pressure from Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin.
Negotiators haven't even finished work on a draft agreement-in-principle.
But last week, Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin called a press conference to announce the details of a document that his government will use to negotiate half a dozen unresolved issues that are standing in the way of an agreement.
They include how much money Inuit will get from the giant Voisey's Bay nickel deposit located 35 km south of Nain.
Land quantum, compensation payments from the federal government and some details of self-government are also described in Tobin's document.
It's a document that would normally remain confidential until a complete agreement in principle is reached.
No deal yet
"It just creates a perception out there this is a done deal. I have to say it's not yet a deal," said LIA President William Barbour. He said the document will be used to continue negotiations on an agreement-in-principle.
Negotiators for the LIA, along with the federal and Newfoundland governments, initialled the document in Ottawa last month after a marathon 12-day bargaining session. The board of the LIA met in Nain last week and gave their approval to it.
The LIA wasn't planning to announce any of the details to members because the three parties agreed to keep them confidential.
Supposed to be confidential
So the premier's announcement came as a surprise and the LIA's co-chief negotiator, Toby Andersen, says it may reduce his ability to change the details in the document.
"We felt there was some room for further discussions between now and the agreement-in-principle stage," Andersen said.
"What's happening now is LIA is locked into the principles as being the final negotiations. Maybe there's no more room for negotiation," Anderson said.
Most people heard the details of the document from Tobin first. The LIA scrambled to catch up, sending out a six-page flyer to each household at the end of the week.
LIA over a barrel?
"He's putting LIA over a barrel more than ever now," said Ronald Webb, taking a break from building a qamutik. "It's hard to figure what the premier has up his sleeve."
The week's events didn't sit well with Nain's mayor either. "Most of the time negotiations are pre-determined," said Johannes Lampe. "To me it's like they're saying you have to do this our way."
But Toby Andersen says the membership will have the last word on an agreement-in-principle when one is reached.
"They will make the decision as to whether or not it's good enough not Premier Tobin, not President Barbour, not the negotiators," he said.
Talks will likely resume at the end of the month.
Andersen estimates it will take until the end of January to finish the draft.
Land claim talks became more intense after INCO paid $4.1 billion for the rights to the nickel discovery at Voisey's Bay.
The LIA agreed to fast track negotiations with the two levels of government last fall. The team moved to St. John's and negotiated full time. They reached agreement on more than a dozen subsections, including fisheries, harvesting and environmental protection.
The three parties originally agreed to a deadline of March 1997 for a draft agreement.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsJULIE GREEN
Special to Nunatsiaq News
HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY Last week, Labrador Inuit got a look at what they might find in a land claim agreement with the provincial and federal governments.
Here's what's in it:
DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Last week's announcement that Nunavut Tunngavik would set up its own "shadow cabinet" has been greeted with a mixture of optimism, relief and skepticism.
Some regular MLAs say they can use all the help they can get watching over the policies of the territorial government.
Kivalliviq MLA Kevin O'Brien, for examlpe, who has been particularly vocal in his criticism of the government's health policy in recent months, has already been approached by NTI with offers of support and assistance.
But at least one cabinet minister questioned Nunavut Tunngavik's motives.
"I believe that a lot of the issues they are concerned with could be dealt with through better communications with the cabinet and MLAs," said Deputy Premier Goo Arlooktoo.
Arlooktoo suggested that leaders of the Inuit birthright corporation may simply be positioning themselves for the first territorial election in Nunavut.
"Those of us in the political field find being in the first Nunavut legislature very attractive, so there's no question in my mind that that's part of it," Arlooktoo said.
"I see it as posturing by some individuals within NTI before the next election."
Under the plan unveiled by NTI, each of the eight members of NTI's executive will be assigned to one of the eight members of the GNWT cabinet, and will be resposnible for monitoring, criticizing and responding the actions and statments of each minister.
In announcing the shadow-cabinet, NTI accused ordinary MLAs of failing to provide an effective opposition in the legislature.
As one of the few ordinary MLAs viewed as an ally by the Inuit birthright corporation, O'Brien said he supports the idea of a constructive opposition.
"I think any organization that wants to monitor what goes on in the government is a positive thing," O'Brien said. "Actually, I would have liked to have seen it two years ago."
O'Brien said such organized opposition would be like having an another set of eyes and ears.
"From my viewpoint, judging from the number of members we get criticizing the policies and the programs of the government, I think we could use that extra set of eyes and ears."
Nunavut Tunngavik has already begun to plan how its executive will co-ordinate the Inuit shadow cabinet, and expects to match board members with their respective portfolios within a few weeks.
The motion setting up the shadow cabinet, which was passed Oct. 31 during NTI's annual general meeting in Igloolik, also authorized spending of up to $100,000 on staff and consultants.
As an Inuk beneficiary himself, Arlooktoo said he has reservations about NTI's decision to spend that amount of money to keep NTI executives informed of the cabinet's work.
"Is this the best use of beneficiaries dollars? Is NTI, which is already well-funded administratively, not able to do this within their present structure?" he asked.
Since his own appointment to cabinet, Arlooktoo complained that NTI's executive has given him the cold shoulder.
"Since then I have never received one call from the NTI executive," Arlooktoo said. "I have been the one who intitiates the calls. Most of the communication that comes through is after the fact of little crises and threats to sue, that kind of thing."
On the other hand, Arlooktoo said, the shadow cabinet might offer an opportunity for MLAs and NTI to start working more closely on political issues, "because at this point in time I can tell you there is no working relationship... politically," he said.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsAs priceless archaeological sites in Frobisher Bay are disappearing due to erosion, a team of archealogical experts met in Iqaluit this week to talk about these historic sites.
ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Erosion is carrying away archaeological evidence of Martin Frobisher's voyages to Baffin Island, but Inuit elders in the area are keeping the knowledge of those expeditions alive.
Lucassie Nowdlak is a descendent of one of Frobisher's crew members. He and his nephew, Inookie Adamie, are the only surviving members of his family and they are among the few Inuit who have carried on the oral history of the time their ancestors gazed out across the water to see Frobisher's masted ships.
"I'm sure it was bewildering and frightening to see such strange people and I'm sure there was a bit of conflict that first time," Adamie said during a weekend meeting in Iqaluit to discuss Frobisher's voyages. "I'm assuming that. This is what I used to hear from the older people who carried on this oral knowledge."
Nowdlak and Adamie, both born near Kodlunarn Island, have been an integral part of the research into Frobisher's three voyages from 1576-78.
Researchers were in Iqaluit to report on their historical and archaeological findings in the Meta Incognita Peninsula, in southern Baffin Island.
Kodlunarn (an English corruption of the work "qallunaaq") Island is located at the outer part of Frobisher Bay. It was the base of operations for the English explorer. Designated a national historic site in 1964, it's the centre of most of the current research.
"It seems recent, though it was a long time ago," Nowdlak told those gathered at the parish hall. "My ancestors were around that area. They used to tell stories about what had happened. I know my mother was one of the children of those white people around that area."
A race against time
William Fitzhugh of the Smithsonian Institute has been part of a team of national and international scholars and researchers who've been studying Frobisher's voyages. The Smithsonian Institute carried out four years of research in the area, which Fitzhugh says is a race against time.
"This region on the outer part of Baffin Island is sinking," Fitzhugh said. "The sea levels are rising. It makes archaeology in the outer bay more essential to learn about while it still exists because so much has been lost to erosion."
For example, he said, there are no archaeological artifacts from visits by Dutch whalers in the 1600-1700s. Fitzhugh suggested a "little ice age" has erased that evidence.
"It's a serious problem with the preservation of archaeological sites," he added.
Professor Thomas Symons, co-founder of Trent University and a member of the Meta Incognita Project Steering Committee, has also been active in the research being carried out in the area.
"The Frobisher experience, that was so remarkable, has been so completely forgotten for centuries," Symons said.
He said research into the Frobisher expeditions has cast light on studies into Elizabethan shipbuilding and navigation, intercultural relations, geography, cartography, mining and metallurgy, music and heritage conservation.
Historical site protection
As interest in the Meta Incognita Peninsula builds, the steering committee is examining ways to protect the historical sites. Members of the committee feel the preservation of the remaining archaeological sites should take precedence in a management plan. The committee is looking for suggestions from the public, as well as researchers, as it develops this plan.
The Canadian Museum of Civilization plans to publish two volumes detailing the work that has been carried out in the area. Reports dealing with archaeological and oral history will also be published.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT After months of public pressure, the Baffin health board has accepted Qikiqtaaluk Corporation's offer to help finance a new hospital.
The Baffin Regional Health and Social Services Board passed a motion Wednesday morning in Iqaluit giving the go-ahead to the Inuit birthright corporation to pursue a financing deal.
"We have basically accepted the QC offer," said board chair Dennis Patterson. "That gives the board's approval to proceed with the next step with QC."
Last August, in a letter to health minister Kelvin Ng, former board chair Ann Hanson and QC president Jerry Ell agreed to 11 points in relation to financing, including QC's offer to pick up any shortfall in capital funds for the planning and construction of a regional hospital.
That agreement was quashed when the board, at a meeting in Iqaluit in September, rejected QC's offer. In the weeks following that meeting, Baffin residents criticized the decision and called for the board to pursue a deal with the corporation.
Patterson said the board discussed QC's offer again and approved 10 of those 11 points in a formal motion Wednesday. Board members chose not to accept the point that would involve the new hospital foundation raising funds for the capital project.
"We don't want to get the establishment of a foundation mixed up with the capital financing," Patterson said. "A foundation can do many things, including raise money for capital. We just don't want it to get mixed up with the QC financing offer."
Patterson said board members were satisfied that the corporation would not be involved in health care delivery, a concern many expressed at the September meeting. That position was outlined in the motion.
"They expressed their satisfaction that that was clear in the points," Patterson said.
Jerry Ell expected to meet with the health board on Wednesday, but instead met privately with Patterson. Either way, the board's decision was news he wanted to hear.
"We're no longer waiting in the wings," Ell said. "It means we can continue proceeding along trying to secure the financing and trying to come to a formal agreement with the health board in terms of how a lease would be structured."
The exact cost of a new hospital hasn't been confirmed, but GNWT Minister of Finance John Todd has already made it clear that the government can't afford more than $25 million.
"We're still limited by what the government can afford and what is possible without affecting the on-going programs and services provided by the health board," Ell said. "Right now, that's the number we have from the government, saying that's all they can provide over the long term is a $25 million facility."
Because the exact dollar amount coming from the GWNT is unknown, Ell said QC's plan is to fund 100 per cent of the capital costs up front. He added some of those costs will be recaptured from the government and foundation during the construction phase. The remaining costs will be paid back on a long-term lease.
Financing will be the topic of discussion at a meeting of Nunavut health board chairs, regional Inuit birthright development corporation presidents and the GWNT minister of finance to be held later this month in Rankin Inlet.
The board has also hired a consulting firm to develop a strategic plan for the project. From that report, due December15, a functional review will take place to determine the size and cost of a new hospital.
Back to TopAre greenhouse gases changing Arctic polynyas?
DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Marine scientists will sail to an arctic oasis in north Baffin Bay next March to measure the effects of global warming on the Arctic ecosystem.
Among the questions they hope to answer is how polar seas respond to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a so-called greenhouse gas.
Canadian researchers are leading the three-year study of the North Water Polynya, considered to be one of the most fertile oceanic regions north of the Arctic Circle.
"This production is possible because it's open water at a time when everywhere else in the Arctic is under ice cover," Dr. Christine Michel, a marine biologist with Université de Laval in Quebec City said. "So it is very important from a biological point of view."
Arctic polynyas serve as feeding, mating, spawning and overwintering grounds for many species of marine birds and mammals. Fish also thrive in these vast expanses of open water, thanks to an abundance of microscopic organisms known as plankton.
The North Water Polynya, hemmed in by Ellesmere and Baffin islands and Greenland, stretches south of Devon Island in January and reaches Bylot Island in June.
"What we know already from previous experiments is that it's a very productive area in the Arctic," Michel said.
Polynyas increase in size with global warming
Some scientists predict that polynyas will grow in size and frequency if average global temperatures continue to rise, as they have during the last 50 years.
But exactly how the arctic ecosystem will respond to global warming is not fully understood.
The study, which recieved major funding from Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, began with an expedition to the North Water Polynya last summer.
Researchers spent several weeks setting up hydrographic instruments which they will use to measure sea currents, salinity, temperature and tides.
"We want to know what are the physical processes that keep the polynya open during the winter," explained Michel, the study's co-ordinator.
Using Sir John Franklin
In the second expedition, scheduled to begin in March, 1998, scientists from Canada and seven other countries will spend four months working and living onboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, the Sir John Franklin.
A wide range of experiments and biological sampling are planned.
Some researchers will look at fish and birds and seals; others will turn their microscopes to much tinier life forms.
Michel herself plans to examine the life-cycle of phytoplankton, in part to estimate the role polynyas play in regulating greenhouse gases associated with global warming.
Phytoplankton essential to food chain
Phytoplankton are microscopic algae that bloom in the arctic sunshine under the ice cover, converting light into food through a process known as photosynthesis. All aquatic food chains depend on them.
"They are very important primary producers in arctic regions," Michel said.
They may also keep greenhouse gases in check, since inorganic carbon dioxide is incorporated by phytoplankton, and, through photosynthesis, converted into organic matter.
Some scientists speculate that an increase in the absorption of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton could, ultimately, lower global temperatures.
"All organisms produce carbon and there is a transfer of this carbon from one step in the food chain to another, through eating," Michel said.
Dead and digested organic material tends to sink to the ocean floor, taking the carbon along with it.
"This flux of carbon to the bottom might be very important to regulate the carbon in the atmosphere, because when it goes from the atmosphere to the ocean then sinks to the bottom, it will not go back to the atmosphere," Michel said.
"So it's a way to regulate the increase in CO(2) in the atmosphere."
To this end, sediment traps have been moored to the sea bottom to collect particles sinking from the upper depths. The traps will be reinstalled next summer, to provide a complete two-year record.
In the North Water Polynya, Michel plans to study a species of phytoplankton known as diatoms.
Though individual organisms only range in size from about 10 to 50 one-thousandths of a millimetre in length, diatoms are a critical link in the arctic ecosystem, providing food for animal organisms known as zooplankton, upon which, in turn, fish larvae feed.
A team of scientists led by Dr. Ian Stirling from Environment Canada is also using the expedition to test samples of fish, seals and birds in the polynya for the presence of contaminants.
Back to TopResearchers with the West Kitikmeot/Slave Study have been working with Inuit and Dogrib hunters to find ways of protecting caribou from mine tailings.
DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Ancient aboriginal hunting methods have inspired a new approach to wildlife protection near potentially dangerous mine sites in the Kitikmeot.
Researchers combined Inuit and Dogrib knowledge of caribou movements with some modern ideas about animal behaviour last summer.
What they came up with was a cheap and effective way of keeping the animals from straying too close to cyanide-laden tailings at the Lupin gold mine.
"It's interesting, you turn out to have so much in common when you actually get down to talking about the animals," said Dr. Anne Gunn, a GNWT caribou biologist working with the West Kitikmeot/Slave Study.
Traditional herding methods
Joseph Niptanatiak of the Kitikmeot Hunters and Trappers' Association in Kugluktuk showed researchers how inukshuks were used by his ancestors to divert caribou toward shooting pits in the days before Inuit used guns.
Dogrib elders showed the team traditional diversion methods used below the treeline: funnel-shaped structures built out of tree roots and trees, bedecked with small flags.
"The fence we tried this summer was a combination of what we learned from the Dogribs and what was relatively easy to put up," Gunn said.
Caribou are attracted to mining infrastructure, such as tailings ponds and airstrips, apparently because such clearings offer a vantage point that makes the animals feel safer.
"I think it's the same sort of thing as the attraction of the caribou to lakes in the winter," Gunn said.
"Also, the caribou choose the bare ground because, without the vegetation, there are fewer mosquitoes."
Inuit hunters had expressed concern that caribou straying too close to the Lupin gold mine, southeast of Kuglugtuk, risk drowning in the soft mud flats of the tailing ponds.
Risk of poisoning
They also fear that caribou browsing on nearby vegetation and drinking from waste water in the tailings ponds may be poisoned, since tailings contain high levels of cyanide, Gunn said.
Long-term accumulation of heavy metals such as cadmium and arsenic in the flesh of the caribou, is also a risk.
"The Dogrib have expressed a lot of concerns about Colomac [mine], as well, so we're going to be working with them this winter on setting up some diversion fences there," Gunn said.
To monitor the caribou behaviour at Lupin mine this summer, Gunn and her colleagues placed ordinary 35 mm cameras fitted with timers near the tailings ponds and the airstrip.
The photographs confirmed that the animals do indeed bed down on the mud flats, getting up frequently to graze on nearby vegetation.
The fence design researchers settled on consisted of three strands of rope, to which several ribblons and flags were attached at specific intervals.
"It worked," Gunn said. "They walked parallel to it. They didn't try to walk through it. They didn't panic. It just guided them. And that was exactly what we wanted."
A mining company called Diavik, which is proposing to build a diamond mine at Lac De Gras is now building on West Kitikmeot/Slave Study research to test their own site.
Diversion systems inspired by Inuit knowldege of caribou movements could be developed at future mine sites above the treeline, Gunn said.
"Out on the barrens, at any these mine sites, we could use inukshuks."
"It's interesting, you turn out to have so much in common when you actually get down to talking about the animals."
GNWT caribou biologist Anne Gunn, on the relationship between scientists and aboriginal hunters
Back to TopThe cost of political patronage
Your editorial, "A Failed Institution," describes some of the political patronage contracting practices of the Government of the Northwest Territories.
The Construction Association has challenged the GNWT over negotiated and sole sourced contracts for five years without positive results. Our position is that public funds for public works should be awarded by public tender.
The virtue of the public tender process is that it protects against the political manipulation of awards; it identifies the true market value or cost of a project; and it insures that bona fide contractors end up doing the work
In the editorial, you noted that "Premier Don Morin has finally agreed to publish information about these kinds of contracts. According to a study of this data, undertaken by Treeline Planning Services over 45 per cent of GNWT contracts are either negotiated or sole sourced.
Since negotiated or sole sourced awards are usually 10 per cent to 25 per cent higher than similar projects that are tendered by competition, the annual additional cost to the taxpayer runs into millions of dollars.
Nevertheless, the policy of the current government is to continue sole sourcing and negotiating work. Why is this?
As the amount of public works dramatically declines through budget cuts, competition for a short supply of work increases.
Pressure is then placed on politicians to protect and reward allies and supporters with contracts. Driven primarily by patronage considerations, projects are promoted that are inadequately priced, often suffer from cost overruns, and are, ultimately, bailed out by the government at additional expense.
What can be done to remedy this situation If the government of the NWT awarded construction works and service contracts through public tender, rather than relying on negotiated and sole sourcing method,, there would be an overall cost saving to government of approximately $25 million in the budget between now and division.
These savings could be apportioned to other public works and projects, such as schools and housing, which are needed everywhere
Consequently, with a full commitment to public tendering, additional work and job opportunities would be created throughout the North. Something to consider!
Richard Bushey
Executive Director
NWT Construction Association
Why they're worth remembering
At the end of the day, Remembrance Day isn't about poppies, wreaths, the Royal Canadian Legion, or granite cenotaphs.
These, of course, are all important symbols of our desire to remember but they aren't what Remembrance Day is really for.
It's for young men and women barely out of their teenage years, who were and still are willing to give up their lives so the rest of us could and can grow into adulthood without having to do the same.
Nearly all the young people who offered themselves up to be killed and maimed in World War I have grown old and passed on. Those who were young during World War II and the Korean conflict are now themselves approaching their final years.
Soon, the only military veterans left alive in Canada will be those who served, not in wars against other nations, but as either peacekeepers or potential peacekeepers.
That's a role that ought to be honoured. But unfortunately, Canada's peacekeepers receive too little honour and an excessive degree of criticism.
That's understandable, given the appalling behaviour of some of our peacekeepers in Somalia a few years ago. The attempts by senior defence staff and federal government officials to cover up minimize their atrocities hasn't helped their reputations either.
But even as you read this, members of the Canadian military are still putting their lives on the line for peace and the well-being of others.
They include members of Canadian bomb disposal units who are defusing mines and enduring abuse from hostile populations in the former Yugoslavia, and small groups of vulnerable peacekeepers in many other countries.
Most of these people especially in the lower ranks are poorly paid, badly equipped, and under-appreciated at home. Some have even died on active service, with little attention from the national media.
These people too, deserve to be acknowledged on Remembrance Day, because they too have made the same sacrifice their fathers and grandfathers made in our century's two world wars.
That, by the way, is another reason for preserving Remembrance Day because it reminds the young that there's honour in seeking a vocation where you might be asked to sacrifice your life. That message won't get through, however, unless those other young men, the ones who gave up everything in 1914 and 1945, are also given their due.
Remembrance Day came and went this week in Canada much as it has for generations now. Let it come and go for generations to come because it's one of only a few institutions left to us that connects us to our nation's past.
It's also one of the few institutions left to remind us that sacrifice for the love of others is an honourable way to live. JB
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